Focused Feedback: Role Diversity Bonus

[The Curator]

Role Diversity Bonus

New Challenge Option

• New bonus added to all Task Forces & Strikes forces. This bonus is enabled by default and requires no action from the players. This bonus applies automatically when the criteria for the reward are fulfilled.
• Team members are checked when they zone into missions, if they don't zone into any mission the challenge won't check them.
• Epic archetypes count for three different roles at once.
• Once the bonus is fulfilled, you'll get a pop-up float and a small TF/SF-specific icon ( or ) will appear to signify the team has qualified for the bonus on completion.
• For more details see below:

 More Prismatic Aether for everyone without any action needed! 

[Dispari]

Regarding the roles here, I do have a question/comment. Why is Widow listed as Control but Soldier as Support?

 

Control: Fortunata has control powers yes, but Night Widow has none. If you're a Night Widow, you're not contributing any control whatsoever and your role is completely inaccurate. In fact, Banes and Crabs have more mez powers than Night Widows do, because they at least have access to an immobilize.

Support: If Banes count as support, why don't Widows? Widow numbers for DEF and ToHit are higher across the board, they grant psi RES, and they get access to VEAT Vengeance (which stacks with normal Vengeance).

Realistically both VEATs should be melee/range/support, because that's what they are, objectively. I realize it was probably varied so they fall into different categories, but this feels forced and inaccurate. The game even agrees; when you go to make a new character, both Widows and Soldiers are listed under Support, and neither are listed under Control.

[ScarySai]

I'd say soldiers are definitely more support orientated than widows, while both have leadership and team buffs, soldiers offer a pretty sizable amount of -res and other such debuffs, where widows really are more of a dps with some control.

[lemming]

I think it was to not have them hit too many spots.

Does look like a Warshade and Soldier would fulfill all five spots.  Pity for "balance" that PB + Widow would not.

[Fade]

Does a team of two, one Warshade and one Arachnos Soldier, count as a full "diverse team"? Is it meant to?

[Uun]

Corruptors and Controllers should be included in Support.

Brutes should be included in Melee Damage.

[macskull]

1 hour ago, Fade said:

Does a team of two, one Warshade and one Arachnos Soldier, count as a full "diverse team"? Is it meant to?

Yes and yes. The epic ATs intentionally count for multiple roles.

 

24 minutes ago, Uun said:

Corruptors and Controllers should be included in Support.

Brutes should be included in Melee Damage.

Each AT aside from epic ATs can only fill one role, and this was the best way to fill those roles while keeping the non-epic AT distribution relatively even.

[Fade]

1 hour ago, macskull said:

Yes and yes. The epic ATs intentionally count for multiple roles.

Ok, cool. To be clear, I was more focused on whether those ATs could count for multiple roles at the same time, rather than whether they could count for any one role as needed to fill out a team. But it sounds like the answer to my questions is "yes" either way.

 

As for whether non-epic ATs should count as multiple roles, I can see both sides on this one.

• On one hand, I play my corruptors specifically to bring support to a team. The game already tells you during the character creation process which ATs can provide what roles, and it seems silly to disregard that and have a much more narrow focus of what each AT is doing.
• On the other hand, this doesn't change the way the game is played at all. It's only used for getting a bit of bonus rewards. And the end goal clearly seems to be nudging players towards playing "classic" teams of one of each AT, so I can see why there's exactly one traditionally Hero AT in each category and one traditionally Villain AT in each category.

Ultimately I'm not going to worry about the design too much, just make sure things are working as they're intended to be working.

[macskull]

25 minutes ago, Fade said:

On the other hand, this doesn't change the way the game is played at all. It's only used for getting a bit of bonus rewards. And the end goal clearly seems to be nudging players towards playing "classic" teams of one of each AT, so I can see why there's exactly one traditionally Hero AT in each category and one traditionally Villain AT in each category.

Ultimately I'm not going to worry about the design too much, just make sure things are working as they're intended to be working.

When this addition initially went to closed beta I kept track of all my task force team compositions on Homecoming for about a week and something like 40-50% of teams I was on would have qualified for the bonus anyways without anyone intentionally switching characters. Especially with the 18-hour character lock, this really isn't anything other than a small reward for the times it does happen.

[Uun]

2 hours ago, macskull said:

Each AT aside from epic ATs can only fill one role, and this was the best way to fill those roles while keeping the non-epic AT distribution relatively even.

Not sure this is feasible, but my suggestion would be that ATs be able to select which role they are filling. Seems silly that masterminds are considered support but corruptors and controllers aren't.

[Dispari]

Definitely a bit messy to have every AT only fill one role, when some are specifically designed to straddle the line between two. Like, most redside ATs are designed as a hybrid, instead of the holy trinity versions bluesiders get out of blaster, defender, and tank.

 

Net result is you shoehorn ATs into roles that only halfway make sense (or not at all, in some cases). Because you need to somewhat balance out what roles each AT fits into. Which... just results in making stuff up and being inaccurate and arbitrary.

 

Not sure it's a great system TBH.

[macskull]

The rewards from this system aren't significant enough that I'd be expecting people to intentionally swap characters to get the bonus, which is kind of how it was intended. One PA every 18 hours isn't nearly enough to get me to swap.

[EmperorSteele]

I think it would help if we were told the intention of the system. Is it to actively encourage having multiple different ATs on a team, or is it just a cute little acknowledgment of a happy accident?

 

If its the former, reward needs to go up. The latter? It's fine, IMO.

[FupDup]

Just now, EmperorSteele said:

I think it would help if we were told the intention of the system. Is it to actively encourage having multiple different ATs on a team, or is it just a cute little acknowledgment of a happy accident?

 

If its the former, reward needs to go up. The latter? It's fine, IMO.

If the reward goes too high, then that could get people rejected from teams for playing the "wrong" AT so I'd rather err on the side of being too low. 

[macskull]

2 minutes ago, EmperorSteele said:

I think it would help if we were told the intention of the system. Is it to actively encourage having multiple different ATs on a team, or is it just a cute little acknowledgment of a happy accident?

 

If its the former, reward needs to go up. The latter? It's fine, IMO.

The little footnote at the bottom of the OP should tell you the answer:

 More Prismatic Aether for everyone without any action needed! 

[skoryy]

1 minute ago, macskull said:

The little footnote at the bottom of the OP should tell you the answer:

 More Prismatic Aether for everyone without any action needed! 

 

And if it gets more controllers and defenders out there, all the better!

[macskull]

8 minutes ago, skoryy said:

And if it gets more controllers and defenders out there, all the better!

Here's an additional quote from a dev during closed beta feedback for this, to give some more context:

Quote

The roles are chosen so a team with the 5 "classic" hero and villain ATs will fulfill the challenge

And another, which I can't directly quote here due to its context but in essence said the reward is set to one PA to "discourage any exclusion behavior."

Edited January 20 by macskull

[twozerofoxtrot]

Yeah, this is nice.

 

41 minutes ago, macskull said:

The rewards from this system aren't significant enough that I'd be expecting people to intentionally swap characters to get the bonus

 

You know and I know that some people are absolutely going to do just that. 

For them, it would be the equivalent of leaving money on the table. 

But I agree with your premise that most people won't be doing it, so you won't have teams arguing before launch about who brings what to the fight.

[macskull]

9 minutes ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

Yeah, this is nice.

 

 

You know and I know that some people are absolutely going to do just that. 

For them, it would be the equivalent of leaving money on the table. 

But I agree with your premise that most people won't be doing it, so you won't have teams arguing before launch about who brings what to the fight.

I suppose it is leaving money on the table but so is taking the extra time to have someone switch or find a different teammate instead of just starting the task force and getting the merits.

[Dispari]

Just thinking about hypothetically if normal ATs fit two categories while VEATs fit three, you could make a pretty decent spread. The problem ATs end up being Scrapper, Stalker, and Sentinel because their secondary isn't exactly tanking and it doesn't really fit anywhere else. Dominator actually does control, melee, and ranged so is problematic to fit in just two slots. Mastermind you could make a case for being under tank, since I wouldn't say it necessarily fits as melee or ranged damage. Or maybe it fits every category since MM sets can be just about anything.

 

You also come across the problem of control really only having two ATs that definitely fit. You could make a case for Warshades or Fortunatas or heck even the right dark Scrapper, but it's really just not a role that a lot of characters are designed to fit in. You can force some other ATs in there, but it becomes obvious you're doing it to fill out the role and not because they truly undeniably belong there.

When I form teams for a TF I look for a tank of some sort, some support (all VEATs and Corrs definitely count; hell Doms are even half a support IMO), and the rest doesn't matter. I don't try to break down melee or ranged damage as if they're significantly different things. And control basically is support so I don't go out of my way to look for that separately either.

 

Just not sure this system is going to make sense without shoving a few square pegs in round holes. And then if we do get it all baked down to diversity for all the roles... congrats, we reinvented the holy trinity.

Edited January 20 by Dispari

[Lazarillo]

Granted, I have no real skin in the game.  This won't influence my teaming habits one whit.  It just means sometimes I'll get an extra 2½ million influence on TFs, but with random mission-end rewards, that's already a thing. 

 

4 hours ago, macskull said:

Each AT aside from epic ATs can only fill one role, and this was the best way to fill those roles while keeping the non-epic AT distribution relatively even.

On the one hand, that in and of itself is kinda janky.  On the other, the amount of flak I've seen Defenders get for being "less damage" even in the face of their significantly meatier support, makes me think that if the intent is one for each, then putting Corruptors into the "ranged damage" category makes perfect sense, when that's how they're treated by many players.
 

Edited January 20 by Lazarillo

[StarkWhite]

I think people are approaching this as some sort of "and now going forward here is how we've redefined the roles of all the ATs" thing, when it's actually just a "if you brought a nice mix of ATs rather than a tanker and seven corruptors, you deserve a little pat on the head."

[Dispari]

Maybe so, but being able to run content with a tank and 7 corruptors is kinda what makes City cool. I've done all Scrapper TFs and all MM TFs. Do we need to encourage people to float closer to a "correct" team makeup? Even if the vast majority of people ignore it and decide they don't need Prismatics, it's going to come up and insert some amount of chaos into teams forming TFs.

It also kinda breaks down when you can just bring 2 EATs and somehow that counts as a diverse team, but 8 completely different archetypes (Tanker, Stalker, Peacebringer, Soldier, Blaster, Mastermind, Sentinel, Corruptor) might not.

[Glacier Peak]

10 minutes ago, Dispari said:

Maybe so, but being able to run content with a tank and 7 corruptors is kinda what makes City cool. I've done all Scrapper TFs and all MM TFs. Do we need to encourage people to float closer to a "correct" team makeup? Even if the vast majority of people ignore it and decide they don't need Prismatics, it's going to come up and insert some amount of chaos into teams forming TFs.

It also kinda breaks down when you can just bring 2 EATs and somehow that counts as a diverse team, but 8 completely different archetypes (Tanker, Stalker, Peacebringer, Soldier, Blaster, Mastermind, Sentinel, Corruptor) might not.

Those epic ATs can fill in any of those AT roles - that's pretty much the point behind them. Now that's not to say they're better, they're jack of all trades.

Edited January 21 by Glacier Peak
*spelling

[TheSpiritFox]

If Warshades and PB get to be across multiple roles then Masterminds need to cross ranged damage, tank, and support.